The Fortress Between Us
by Tru Sigheart
Summary: Meet Mark. A failing high school student and TF2 Spy extraordinaire. One day, he gets picked up by a real TF2 team and ends up winning big money from tournaments. He returns to his high school and creates the "Highlander Club" to get more people into Highlander TF2. Watch as Mark enlists a variety of students to fill out his team, each with their own traits. Rated T for romance.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: Opportunity Awaits**

"Spy around here!"

"Spy!"

"Boys, we have a traitor!"

The RED Spy listened with satisfaction as the entire BLU team erupted into a frenzy, spychecking each other like there was no tomorrow. Amongst the crowd, a BLU Medic's corpse lay on the ground with a gaping knife wound in his back. RED Spy quickly peeked around the corner. The rest of his team was still capping the middle point. He wouldn't expect for them to show up for at least a few more minutes. RED Spy swiftly applied a BLU Sniper disguise and activated his Quäckenbirt, rendering him invisible. He slunk down a dark flank route, bypassing the BLU team. His mission wasn't to kill them, but to destroy the sentry on the last point. Originally, stabbing the Medic wasn't even in his plan, but once he saw that full Ubercharge, he could barely resist. Now the BLU team was alerted to his presence, which in his mind, was totally worth dropping an Uber for.

RED Spy kept an ear out for suspicious movements as he made his way to the last point. Suddenly, he heard the sound of footsteps coming towards him. He looked behind him and saw a BLU Pyro quickly making his way to the sentry nest to defend it. RED Spy peeked at his Quäckenbirt. He was almost out of cloak. RED Spy took a deep breath as his mind started to race, formulating a plan. He quickly dove to the side, moving out of the Pyro's way just as his cloak ran out. The whooshing sound of the decloak caught the Pyro's ear, making him instinctively turn around and spray a wave of fire. RED Spy jumped back just before the flames reached him. He took a better look at the Pyro. He has hats and an Australium flamethrower, indicating that he is rather experienced. That fact was later confirmed as the Pyro immediately followed up his spray of fire with a compression blast, knocking Spy backwards. Pyro quickly shot a subsequent Scorch Shot flare at Spy, igniting him and knocking him back into a wall. Spy smirked. This is exactly what he wanted to happen. He glanced to his left. A small ledge was located there, leading to the rest of the second control point. As soon as his feet touched the ground, Spy dashed towards the ledge. Pyro, seeing that the Spy was trying to run, decided to pursue him with his flamethrower. Spy felt the searing flames hit his back, rapidly damaging him. He peeked behind him to see how far the Pyro was from him. He refocused to the task at hand with a smirk on his face. This Pyro is dead meat. Spy dropped below the ledge, backed up into it, and immediately crouched. Pyro was just close enough to not be able to react as quickly, causing him to overshoot the drop off the ledge, exposing his back to Spy. '

 ***CHK!***

Pyro let out a pained shout as he slowly crumpled to the ground, dead. RED Spy had no time to celebrate, however. He immediately ran to the nearest health pack to cure the afterburn. He arrived with health to spare, the health pack restoring him back to full. He chuckled as he applied a Pyro disguise. He ran into the final point and came up to the BLU sentry nest. The BLU Engineer smiled with relief.

"Thanks mister!" BLU Engineer exclaimed. He shot a few pistol rounds off randomly across the room. "Spy around here!" RED Spy smiled evily under his disguise. He crept up to the Engineer's back and swiftly planted his knife into his spine. He then spun around and slapped his sapper on the Sentry before it could turn around and shoot him. Spy heard the distant sound of explosions and gunfire. His team had made it through mid and are advancing on the BLU team on second. Without an Ubercharge or a Pyro to counter the RED team's Uber, the BLU team was swiftly flattened. After capturing the second last control point, RED Spy took advantage of the lack of BLU team members nearby and swiftly captured the last control point by himself.

"VICTORY!"

RED team let out a cheer as they all walked up to the RED Spy joyously. Soldier gave Spy a thumbs up. "Thanks!" He said kindly. Demoman offered a high five to Spy, which he gladly took. Then, the whole RED team erupted into a celebratory conga as they pranced around on their newly owned control point.

* * *

"That was fuckin' sick dude!" LickMyChode115 said through the Mumble server. "I've never seen a Highlander Spy as good as you!" Mark sat in his chair with a cheerful expression on his face, reveling in his teammate's shower of compliments.

"Yo Incognit0! Add me!" Mark suddenly saw a friend request pop up in the bottom right corner of his screen. He smiled.

"Sure thing Hectovic. You're a pretty good Medic as well!" Mark clicked on the friend request and accepted it.

"Thanks man! I hope we can play together again sometime!" Hectovic responded cheerfully. Mark's demeanor saddened as Hectovic mentioned playing again.

"Yeah…" Mark said, sounding a little more depressed. GustavBeast noticed this and piped up.

"Hey man, you alright? You sound a bit down." Mark took a deep breath as the group waited for his response.

"I gotta go guys. See you around." Everyone on the Mumble server said their goodbyes as Mark disconnected. He sat back in his chair and put his hand to his forehead. He gave a loud sigh as he rolled his chair over to the other side of his desk. He brushed his brown hair to the side and took off his glasses, rubbing his sore eyes. A heap of unfinished homework and overdue essay planners sat there. On top of the pile was a letter from Mark's high school. The words: "MANDATORY EXTRA HELP" was written as the letter's title in big bold letters. Mark put his face down to the desk as groaned. He played too much again. He grabbed his backpack and emptied its contents onto the pile, adding more unfinished assignments. Mark stared at the massive pile of work on his desk. It haunts him every day. He quickly glanced at the time on his computer: 1:58 AM. "Fucking hell. 5 hours of sleep again." Mark shut off his computer and grudgingly made his way to his bed. He flicked off his bedside lamp and tucked himself in, trying to push the guilt from his unfinished assignments out of his mind.

Just before Mark fell asleep, his phone vibrated. He picked up his phone from his nightstand and turned it on, the light from the screen blinding him momentarily. Once his eyes recovered, he saw that he got a message through Steam. It was Hectovic.

"Hey Incognit0! I couldn't help but notice the 'LFT' you put in front of your name." Mark sat up with surprise. Was this what he thought it was? He quickly texted a Steam message back.

"Yeah, I'm looking for a team right now." Mark waited for Hectovic to respond.

"Perfect! I am a part of Team RockoMek! I main Medic in all gamemodes. We are in desperate need for a Spy with your talents." Mark couldn't believe his eyes. Team RockoMek got second place in the Winter Highlander competition last year. The only thing that stopped them in the finals was their Spy, who missed a stab on a Medic with full Uber, causing Team RockoMek to lose. The Spy was kicked out of the team due to that.

"No way! I'm getting a place on a legit team?!" Mark texted.

"Yes. We are preparing for the upcoming annual Winter Highlander competition. If you are interested, please fill out the registration papers here." Mark tapped on the link that Hectovic sent him, leading him right to a PDF copy of the papers. "How old are you Incognit0?" Mark quickly responded.

"17. Senior year of high school."

"In that case, you need to know that you must quit school to prepare with us. This is a all out bet. If we fail, you will flunk out of school. If we succeed, you will be the proud recipient of $500,000."

"Hell yeah! I'll go!" Mark was quick to send that message. He really had nothing to lose by quitting high school. He has no friends, bad grades, and no club involvement except for the Track and Field club, which he only stayed in so he won't turn into a fat slob. Because of that, Mark actually had a pretty fit body for someone who games as much as he does.

"Perfect. Just send me the finished papers and we'll get you on board ASAP." Mark excitingly tabbed out of the Steam chat and opened the PDF.

"This is my key to a new life." Mark thought to himself as he started to fill in the forms.

* * *

 **TF2 meets reality. I really want to know your opinion on this new style of TF2 fanfiction. Please leave a review!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: He's Back**

Camille Winters is everything a high school girl could dream of. She's pretty, student council president, captain of the volleyball team, and nine time winner of the semi-annual Archimedes math contest. She looks over everything within the school, including clubs and any students that stand out in particular. Over the last three years, however, one particular student stood out more than any other: Mark Feralis.

Ever since halfway through his freshman year, he started to skip school more and more, usually only coming to school for the Track and Field team. Camille had kept a close eye on this particular oddball for a long time, letting her see some of his very odd traits. He's quiet, almost non-existent. He shows up for class and flies under the radar. He shows up for Track and Field and does almost nothing but run on the treadmill for the entire time. He eats lunch by himself and shuns anyone who tries to interact with him. To Camille, it was almost as if he's rejecting everything about school. As if he had bigger things to focus on. So when Mark disappeared from the school all of a sudden in September, Camille was immediately suspicious. She kept her eyes open for Mark as the days went by. Nothing. None of his classmates even noticed that he was gone, or even know his name. Three months pass with no sign of Mark. That's when Camille finally gave up her search and refocused onto more pressing matters, like planning for the Christmas Prom. Now it was like Mark never existed. A phantom in everyone's minds.

 **December 14, 2016, 7:00 AM**

"What's this?" Camille noticed a brand new poster pinned to a corkboard outside the main office. She always came to school earlier than the other students, thus making her the first to find out about this poster. It stood out from the plain black and white papers that accompanied it there, making it easy to notice.

"Join the Highlander Club! Meets every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in room 224 after school. Only eight members needed!" The poster read. A rather cartoony picture of some dude with a rocket launcher and a guy in a suit was located above the text, making Camille more confused. "What's this club? How did this club start overnight without me knowing about it? Why are the meetings located in the computer lab?" Questions similar to those raced through Camille's mind. She quickly scanned the poster for any further details, finding some fine print on the bottom corner.

"Sponsored by Team Rockomek. The club may apply for a tournament if it is eligible, presenting cash rewards. Submit registrations at /users/registration." Camille quickly whipped out her phone and entered "Team Rockomek" into Google. She tapped on the first link that popped up, " ".

".tf? What sort of suffix is this for a URL?" Camille thought to herself. The site loaded as Camille was brought to its home page. She recognised the cartoony rocket launcher guy and suit guy in the background of the page. She read the main article on the home page.

"Welcome to TEAM ROCKOMEK, the 2016 Winter Highlander first place champions and 2015 Winter Highlander second place finalists. Please welcome our newest and most skilled member, Incognit0!" Camille tapped on the hyperlink on Incognit0's name. She was taken to his profile on the site.

"Hello there. I am Incognit0, Team Rockomek's Spy. I actually quit school to join this team, so don't look up to me that much." Camille scrolled through Incognit0's banter and located his 'about' page. "~Name: Mark Feralis~ ~Age: 17~" That was all Camille needed to read. A picture of the suit guy was located next to the about section, proving that he is somehow connected to Mark in a way. Camille assumed that this suit guy is called 'Spy'. She quickly gathered some key words and entered them into Google. Nothing came up, until she searched 'Highlander' and 'Spy'. After doing some basic reading on the links that popped up, Camille was left much less worried. This was a video game! A competitive one at that! She smirked.

"So that's what Mark's been doing." She thought. "He entered some sort of tournament with a team and won." Camille looked up from her phone, only to find out that she's surrounded by students! They were all looking at the poster with awe.

"A TF2 club? Hell yeah I'm goin'!" A guy exclaimed from within the crowd.

"No way! One of those eight spots are mine!" Someone else shouted.

"What's this?" A hispanic, female voice rang out. The crowd, which was almost all guys, turned to look at her. It was Samantha De Vita, the school's resident popular beauty girl. She has rich parents, thus making her think very highly of herself. Samantha walked up to the poster, her dark, straight hair flowing behind her, and examined it. "I know this game. My dumbass brother plays it all the time." She smirked at the crowd, who all stood there with their jaws wide open. "So if I join this crap, I'll get money for clicking on some virtual people?" Samantha pulled her phone from her bag and took a picture of the registration URL. "I'm in." She strutted away, leaving the crowd in disbelief.

"No way! If I join this club, I'll get to play video games with frickin' Samantha De Vito!?" Camille, who had been watching the pandemonium from afar, saw the crowd get more and more frantic. Camille smiled as she walked up to the poster, cutting through the crowd.

"Hold on, that's Camille! The crowd froze once again. Camille looked at the poster with interest. She took out her phone and took a picture of it. She put her phone away.

"Maybe I'll finally find out what makes you tick, Mark." Camille said quietly as she walked out of the crowd.

"NO FUCKING WAY! Camille and Samantha in the same room playing video games with us!? Get out of my way! I'm so signing up right now!" The crowd of guys absolutely swarmed over the poster, taking pictures of the URL. Nearby, a group of girls overheard the conundrum. They turned around into a tight huddle and started whispering.

"If we join this club, then it's a one way ticket to getting close to the two most popular girls in school! I don't know about you girls, but I'd _love_ to be on both Samantha's and Camille's good sides!" The girls nodded and quickly joined the fray, adding more confusion to the masses. Everyone dissipated at around 8:00, which is when classes start. The rest of the day went on in silence as everyone's minds were full of thoughts about the Highlander club.

* * *

"Finally! Here we go!" Camille was in her room, on her double moniter computer. She was wearing a headset and was wearing nothing but a bra, some sweatpants, and an undershirt. She had never felt more like a gamer in her life. She had just finished downloading TF2 and was booting up the game for the first time. On her second screen, she had the registration page for the Highlander club open. She slowly read the instructions one by one. "Step 1: Install TF2 if you do not have it." Camille smiled. That was done already. "Step 2: Find a game and record a round of yourself playing as your desired class in the club." Camille read the bold print under step two. "Warning: You will **not** be able to switch classes in the club after you have chosen one to register as!" She nodded, now more wary of her class choice. She clicked on the 'Play' button and selected casual mode. A list of game modes appeared in front of her. The only two that she knew for sure was capture the flag and king of the hill, both being rather obvious in their names. She selected both modes and queued up, waiting to get matched to a game.

 **ctf_doublecross**

"Mission begins in 60 seconds." BLU Heavy smirked. He took a look at his team: a Scout, 2 Soldiers, 2 Demomen, a Heavy, and a Spy… _And 4 Engineers._ Heavy rolled his eyes. It would seem like that they won't be putting up much of an offense. He bet that the Engineers are going to run straight into the Intel room and barricade it up. Suddenly, a female Medic appeared in the spawn room, looking very timid. Heavy sighed with relief. Maybe this Medic and him could just wide the enemy team by themselves. However, Heavy noticed that this Medic didn't have any hats or unlockable weapons. He examined the Medic as she started to look around. After staying right where she was for a full ten seconds, Medic finally moved. She looked at the Heavy with a confused expression and shot him with the Syringe Gun a few times. Then, she put her gun away and brought out her Medigun. She attached the Medigun's beam firmly onto Heavy as she cuddled right up to him as if the Heavy was his parent or something. Heavy sighed. A newbie Medic. Heavy opened up his comms and sent the Medic a text message.

"Medic, just stick with me." Heavy looked at Medic, who gave an over-exaggerated nod.

"Get ready!" The player waiting phase ended as everyone was sent back to their spawns. "5...4...3...2...1" The gates burst open as the BLU team came rushing out. Heavy noticed that Medic was still sticking to him like glue. Both teams met in the middle of the wide bridge. Heavy lowered his minigun as he unleashed a flurry of bullets at the RED team, killing a RED Scout in the process. Most of the damage from the RED team was healed off by the Medic, making Heavy nearly unstoppable. Suddenly, Heavy heard Medic scream in pain. He couldn't react fast enough and felt the cold tip of a RED Spy's knife, still freshly coated in blood from Medic's back. While he was waiting for the respawn timer to finish, Heavy opened his comms again and sent Medic another quick text message.

"Watch behind you for spies." He sent the message just as he and Medic respawned. Medic gave another exaggerated nod and reattached her healing beam onto Heavy. They both rushed out of the gates to try and storm the RED base again. On their way out, Medic noticed another Heavy nearby. Thinking that she could spread the healing, she gave the other Heavy a quick burst of healing from her medigun. Medic smiled, feeling a sense of self-worth as she refocused onto her original patient. Medic heard the other Heavy's footsteps behind her. She felt reassured that they were going to have some extra help on the battlefield. Suddenly, Medic felt the sharp tip of Spy's knife once again as he emerged from the Heavy disguise to stab her. She screamed out and fell to the ground, with Heavy following shortly after. RED Spy smirked and shook his head. Too easy. He looked off into the distance as his team's Scout ran by with the briefcase. Their Demomen made short work of the sentries in the BLU intel room, making the Scout's job much easier. Medic watched helplessly while waiting for her respawn timer as her team's intelligence was stolen and stashed away in the RED intel room, scoring RED a point.

The rest of the match just consisted of Medic dying over and over from various things. She had her head decapitated, blown to bits, her back punctured several times, and her body exploded, burnt, shot, and bludgeoned in various locations. Her Heavy 'friend' left the mission halfway through, leaving Medic completely clueless about who to heal. If that wasn't enough, half the time, she ended up healing RED Spies instead! After accidently blowing a fellow BLU Spy's cover by healing him, Spy let her thoroughly know how he felt in the comms.

"fucking idiot med. just blew my cover and got me killed. learn how to play this game fucking noob." Just as the message was sent, RED team captured the BLU intelligence for the third and final time. Medic felt desolate. She spent most of the match dead, and just screwed things up when she was alive. With disappointment and shame in her heart, she left both the mission and her angry teammates.

* * *

"FUCK!" Camille angrily took off her headset and threw it to the floor. Her headset made a sickening clattering sound as it made impact, making Camille feel more frustrated. "How the hell can someone do this? Keeping their shit together in the middle of this storm of bullets and explosives?" Camille wondered. She took a deep breath to calm herself down and started to export the demo file. This is a recording of the game she just played that Mark can manually enter to see things from all perspectives.

Camille covered her face with her hands in frustration, brushing her dirty blond hair out of the way. She noticed that she actually broke into a sweat during the game, even though she was dead most of the time. That feeling was like when she had to sit out during a volleyball game and watch her team get crushed during last year's semi-finals. "How could some fake war to get some stupid briefcase make me sweat so much?" Camille looked back at her screen. The demo was done exporting. She put it into Google drive and shared it with the designated address on the website. She sighed. No way was Mark going to pick her crappy gameplay. She shut off her computer and sat back in her chair. "Maybe a nice, hot bath would let me calm down…" She thought to herself as she slowly stood up from her chair and took off her sweatpants, revealing her toned legs. She threw them to the ground and headed towards the bathroom.

* * *

"How many?" Mark asked. He was in his room, sifting through hundreds of shared demo files. He had a Mumble tab open, connecting him to the rest of Team Rockomek.

"867 total." Hectovic reported. Audible sighs came from everyone but Mark in the Mumble server.

"Jesus! This is gonna take at least a week! Even with all nine of us working together! Now I know how NISLT feels..." Vollki, the team's Scout, complained. Mark smiled.

"How fast it gets done all depends on if you want competitive TF2 to rise back into relevancy!" The rest of Team Rockomek went silent, taking Mark's words into consideration.

"Alright Mark." Hectovic said with vigor in his voice. "Alright team! We blasted our way through an entire tournament full of highly skilled TF2 Highlander teams!" The sound of Hectovic banging his fist on his table could be heard throughout the Mumble server. "Team Rockomek will NOT lose to a bunch of demo files! Now let's get sifting!" Mark smiled. Hectovic had been by far his best friend on the whole team. This is why. He's passionate and caring at the same time, willing to get his hands dirty if he needs to.

"Ok team! Remember! Find the demos with the worst players!" Mark instructed. He forwarded about a ninth of the total amount of demo files to each teammate. Everyone disconnected from the Mumble server to start their task. Mark looked at his ninth of the demos, his eyes focusing on one demo in particular:

Camille Winters.

His secret observer for the past 3 years.

And Mark knew it.

* * *

 **I'm getting some good feedback from this story, which really settles my worries about this story being too "meta". I would love to continue this story, especially now that we are getting to the good parts. Please leave a review! Criticism, especially for this story, is most CERTAINLY appreciated.**


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